Barchart provides Analyst Ratings to give you another tool to gauge the possible future performance of a stock. Analyst Ratings are available for US and Canadian equities.

Unlike Barchart Opinions (which calculate the Buy/Sell rating using a variety of short-medium and long-term technical indicators), the Analyst Ratings are more of a short-term indicator that gives you a feel for how outside industry experts are weighing in on a stock. Analyst Ratings typically are tied into analysis of Earnings Estimates and Earnings Estimates Revisions.

Analyst Target Prices

The chart at the top shows a one-year chart for the symbol, with Earnings highlighted. Above the chart, you will find the 12-Month High, Mean, and Low Target Prices from analysts who provided ratings.

Historical Ratings

The table shows the mean historical analyst recommendation for the current period, along with the previous 1, 2, and 3 periods. To calculate the Mean Recommendation, the number of recommendations for a given rating is multiplied by its factor (1 thru 5, as shown below), the totals are summed, and the average is then calculated by dividing the sum by the total number of recommendations received for the period. This graph is intended to provide a snapshot of the short-term trend in analyst sentiment.

Ratings Breakdown

The Ratings Breakdown table uses Zacks' brokerage recommendations. These recommendations are updated each day and are assigned a rating on a scale of 1 to 5:

1 = Strong Buy

2 = Buy

3 = Hold

4 = Sell

5 = Strong Sell

The information presented on the graph represents the number of industry analysts that currently rank the stock on the 1 to 5 scale. The greater the number of analysts giving a specific recommendation, the higher weight you may want to use when applying these ratings to your own analysis.